Communications is becoming increasingly important in today's society. The increased use of the Internet has greatly increased demand for high bandwidth services for homes and businesses. One approach at addressing this desired demand for bandwidth is the use of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology. Digital subscriber line technology utilizes available frequency ranges associated with conventional telephone wires that are not traditionally used for telephone service.
Both DSL and conventional telephone service typically utilize a central office. At the central office, communications signals received from persons connected to the central office are switched for transmission to more remote points. Such signals may be associated with the DSL transmissions, in which case the signals are transmitted to a network, such as the Internet, or with plain old telephone service (POTS), in which case the communications signal is switched appropriately to the called number. This may involve long distance lines.
The telephone lines originating at a person's home and leading to the central office are sometimes referred to as the local loop. Traditionally, one service provider operates the central office and the local loop and all customers receiving service from that central office were customers of that company. In response to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, access to the central office and the local loop was made available to competitors of the service provider controlling the central office and the local loop. Conventionally, this involves leasing the local loop lines to the competitors. The owner of the central office is often referred to as the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) and its competitors operating within that central office are referred to as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC).
In response to the opening of the local loop, numerous service providers have begun providing DSL service to homes or businesses connected to the local loop, rather than a sole service provider providing such service. To do so, the ILEC provides a telephone wire connection associated with a given user at the central office to the CLEC. The CLEC then connects these wires to a digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) A DSLAM receives communications over a telephone line, converts it into a appropriate digital format for transmission on the Internet, and performs necessary switching to route the converted signal onto the Internet. Conventionally, a DSLAM comprises a plurality of line cards and a network interface. Each line card comprises one or more modems or ports that directly connect to the telephone lines. The network interface interfaces with a network to which communication is desired, and each line card is coupled to the network interface.
Conventionally, each service provider's DSLAM is under-utilized because the DSLAM can conventionally accommodate more customers than any one CLEC has in a given central office. This causes unneeded expense.